Can someone clarify why people are saying the 9500 isn't a DX9 card?

Because the ATI website was advertising the 9600 as the first DX9 card. My mistake, though, I guess.

Not sure why Hellbinder took it so personally...

Unless you only upgrade for FPS, you should DEFINITELY buy a 9800 over a 9500. The 9500 is DX8. Many of the things you see in the HL2 demos are DX9. With a 9500 you won't have to worry about getting better FPS, as you're going to automatically have graphical features barred from your use.

Get a 9500 and spend the rest on ram, or better yet get a real sound card and stop using that cruddy onboard audio.

The 9500 isn't DX9, actually. So it won't be able to use all of HL2's features.

For you World of Darkness fans out there, I have some very important news:

http://www.timeofjudgment.com/

I soooo had this idea 7 months ago!
MMO's fit perfectly in an anthropological study. They are a culture within a subculture. They have their own values, rules, ettiquette, deviance, even their own economic systems. It's brilliant!
/me runs off to sue the University of Washington


This comment was edited on Jul 19, 13:08.

I have a hard time understanding how their marketing department is going to convince people to pay over $250 for a single game

Well, considering that they convinced people to pay $200 for a single game already...

Gamespot has copies of Quicktime versions of all the bink videos (actual direct feed, non-shaky) for those of you that want ff/rew.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/media.html

wtf pray tell are we all d/ling the already seen 500+ meg vid from E3????

Bink video > shakycam

Fileplanet people getting their demos as exclusive is absolutely no different from magazines who get exclusives on their cover disks. And that's been happening for a decade.

Another thing: NWN was originally announced as multiplayer-only, when it was announced officially at GenCon '99:
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=postmessage&boardid=1&id=0&threadid=4360

I wonder how many people they suckered into getting it, expecting an awsome pnp experience and then they were told by assholes "dude0r, teh game is 4 teh online play."

How in the hell did you expect to get any sort of a PnP experience without a DM?

NWN wasn't sold as an "online rpg toolkit designed to let players make games."

No, that's not a fact. 3/4 of the hype about the game was the Aurora toolset. Hence the release of it before the game shipped. Also notice the back of the box.
It was well known by the gaming community that the big deal was the DM part. If you didn't know this, then you must have been living under a rock for the last four years, or simply didn't research the game before you bought it. Did you think they released TWO guides for the game just for fun? No. They released it because half the game was modules.
Anyone that expected BG3 wasn't looking at any previews, they were looking at the word "Bioware" on the box, and thought that it would be a typical Bioware game.

but at $80 (NWN + Shadows) I should be getting a game that makes Fallout or Planescape look like Paper Mario...

I don't care if it was even $200, or a million for that matter. If you expected on any level for Bioware to top classics like Fallout or Planescape then you were only tricking yourself, and it was no one's fault but your own.

Maybe you should actually stop rushing out to buy games simply for their developer.


This comment was edited on Jul 2, 16:36.

Yeah. A "post mortem" is just a post-development analysis of how the development went.

I go and pay extra 10$ and register on some site to download some modules

Why would you have to pay extra? Or register, for that matter.
Most of the NWN modules in existence are available free, without registration, on NeverwinterVault.

My opinion is simply that Bioware is just trying to cover the tracks of poor game design by saying the game is community driven.

No, the game was always intended to be community driven.
-This is why the OC's are separated into parts, and only a few things can carry over from one chapter to the next (so that people can start their groups on any chapter they want)
-The is the sole reason for only having one henchman (the OC was designed primarily for parties consisting of players).
-This was the reason why they put so much emphasis on the toolkit (which had a beta released before the game came out)
-This is the reason why bioware has "neverwinter wednesday" to provide more community resources (e.g. the release of knolls, kobolds, and the like in subsequent patches)

I could continue on this, if you'd like.
The game was meant primarily for multiplayer. The game design reflects this.

Is this the expansion that adds actual role playing?

Actually, yeah. It does.
I'm sure you didn't expect that answer.

Yeah, too bad IPLY lost the DnD license, I would have liked to play Jefferson/BG3.

Why? Bioware made BG1 and BG2. Black Isle made IWD.

In other words, this game, after you have already purchased it at $50, will cost an additional $180 in order for you to be allowed to play the game, for only the next year. Or you can take Sony's generous offer and they will allow you to play your copy of the game for the next year for $144, again in addition to the purchase price.
And all this money garauntees that you can play a game that, by the nature of its current business model, will be buggy and nearly unplayable for at least that first $180 year you are paying for.

And what does this add up to? Paying almost $200 minimum in order to play a game that is nearly unplayable and 100x as buggy as a game that costs a fourth of the price.

This is why I don't like MMO's, and I'm guessing this is why so many MMO's are failing. Hopefully, the trend of failure will continue.

This comment was edited on Jun 17, 18:23.

Sweet!

It's the next game in the PC Ultima series.
-It's not Xbox, since EA hates Xbox.
-It isn't MMO, since then they'd be calling it UO and not Ultima.
-It isn't for Gamecube or PS2, since that would be silly.

Xbox will be around long after Valve has faded away into obscurity, just like every other narrow-franchise gamedev house has.

What are you talking about? The Xbox has only been around for, what? Two years? Valve has been famous for five years, and are coming out with one of the most anticipated games of all time.

Assuming the story is correct and not just a MS propaganda ploy, you don't succeed in business by pissing off the 8 billion pound gorilla.

You do if you're a 9 billion pound gorilla that has MS by the balls, in other words, if you're Valve. Valve's largest market is the PC. Even if they would put it on xbox, they'd just be doing it for a little extra gas money.

I have a feeling HL-2 will be on X-Box, Valve just isn't ready for the announcement. There will be no exclusivity. It will be similar to Splinter Cell, PS2 will get it, but it will look and play like ass.

I see no logic behind that theory.